Appeals Could Hurt Refunds, Policies Limiting Contractors, AI and ROI

Hey everybody, it's Gene Marks, and welcome to this week's episode of the Paychex Thrive week in Review. This is where we take a few items in the news and we talk about them because they're impacting your small business and mine.

Listen, before we get started, I am genuinely fired up about this. Paychex just launched a five-part AI webinar series called “AI for Small Business: A Practical Guide”, and if you own a small business, you need to be there.

I'm a small business owner who uses AI every single day, and I wish I had a roadmap like this when I started using it. The series is free. Each episode is 30 minutes, so it's not much, and it goes throughout the month of June. Register at go.paychex.com/AIWebinarSeries. Again, that's go.paychex.com forward slash AI Webinar Series. We'll also include a link to this series in the show notes. I hope you will tune in.

All right, let's get to the news this week. The first comes from Washington. This is a report in the CFODive website. The Department of Justice has appeals now that's throwing fresh uncertainty into the tariff refund process. So, if you're applying for tariff refunds, you better pay attention. The Trump administration's appeal of a key court ruling has created new uncertainty for companies seeking refunds of tariffs that were previously invalidated by the courts.

The dispute centers on whether all importers should receive refunds or only those that filed legal challenges. According to the article, the Department of Justice argues that the Court of International Trade exceeded its authority by extending relief to importers that did not bring their own cases. As a result, future phases of the Customs and Border Protection Refund Program could be delayed or narrowed.

More than $85 billion in potential refund claims has already been accepted by the customs agency as of late May, with over $20 billion approved for payment. Legal experts say companies participating in the initial refund phase are unlikely to be affected, but firms expecting to file claims in later phases could face additional hurdles, including a potential litigation. The outcome could determine whether importers receive or recover tens of billions of dollars.

So, let me give you the bottom line on this. All right, first of all, if you think that you're owed a refund for tariffs, by all means you can apply. You gotta do it from your broker of record or the custom agency that handled the original transaction. You can't do it independently or separately or using an advisor.

Basically, refunds are being given for what are called liquidated claims, which basically means they've been approved, they've gone through, the money has been, you know, you know, paid, and all the paperwork is done. That's the first round of refunds, those are the billions of dollars right now that are under, you know, under the process. And they're starting to flow. It'll take you about 60-90 days to get your refund, but they're certainly out there and you can do that.

What this story is all about is potential future refunds, right? claims that were contested in court and unliquidated refunds. Obviously, the Trump administration, per this report, are arguing against this. The Department of Justice is arguing against this. So, it may through a hurdle for that next phase of refunds.

But for an initial phase, if you know you've paid the tariffs, all the paperwork is done, they've been liquidated, everything has been resolved, and now you're applying for a refund, you got a good chance of getting that – go for it. Also, make sure you keep an eye on FedEx and UPS and DHL because those organizations have promised refunds all the way back to their customers, as well.

So, uncertainty if you are looking for future refunds, but right now in this first phase, still continue on.

The next bit of news comes the Federal News Network. They are reporting that White House policies are hitting small business contractors hard, according to our Senate. So, this is a report that was released by the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee's Democratic Minority Staff. They claim that federal contracting opportunities for small businesses have declined significantly since January of 2025.

According to one senator, Ed Markey, agencies have reduced spending with small business contractors by approximately $47 billion, with more than 6,500 small firms have exited the federal marketplace. The report found substantial declines across multiple small business programs, including HUBZone firms, 8(a) businesses, women-owned businesses, and veteran-owned contractors.

Committee staff cited 16 months of federal procurement data showing a broad drop in contracting activity compared with the prior administration. Markey, Sen. Markey, argues that the reductions are limiting opportunities for Main Street businesses at a time when many are already facing economic pressures. The findings raise concerns about the health of the federal small business contracting ecosystem and whether policy changes, procurement reforms, and shifting agency priorities are disproportionately affecting smaller vendors that rely on government contracts.

No news to me here. Obviously, with all the work that DOGE has done and continues to do behind the scenes, there are countless cases of government programs being pulled back or even completely terminated in an effort to cut costs of federal spending. Obviously, small businesses are going to be affected by this, including you know, many of you know veterans or minority-owned small firms.

So, what does this mean for you? The government is still spending $7 trillion a year. If you are looking for government work, I recommend that you check out this firm: They're called Apex Accelerators, A-P-E-X. They are part of the government, they were not eliminated by DOGE, and they can help you connect to government contracts.

Yes, there are less out there. Many of them might have been unnecessary or fraudulent. Who knows? But there's still plenty of government work to go around if you go through the effort of applying for it. So, don't be put off by the news about government spending being pulled back or small businesses getting less. Yes, but those are programs that you know may have deserved to be cut back on spending. That's, you know, not for me to say, but I can say that if you are looking for government work, there are there's plenty of work that's out there. Check out Apex Accelerators and they'll help you to connect.

All right, in this week's AI News, this is a report, a press release that was issued. Workers say AI saves 11 hours a week. That's over one-quarter of the work week but they lack the context is eating in gains, according to a new report. In other words, why is this happening? Let me give you more detail, okay.

This is new research from the Work AI Institute at Glean, G-L-E-A-N. They suggest that artificial intelligence is delivering significant productivity gains for individual workers, but many organizations are failing to capture the corresponding business benefits. The study surveyed 6,800 digital workers across the United States, UK, and Australia; They found 87% of them use some form of AI at work, while 75% report higher personal productivity because of it. Respondents estimated that AI saves them an average of 11 hours per week.

However, only 13% said that AI has significantly improved their company's overall performance. Researchers attribute much of that gap to hidden work they call bot sitting – the time spent providing context, checking outputs, correcting mistakes, and managing multiple AI tools. In other words, we're saving time on the productivity side, but then we're spending more time reviewing what AI is doing.

Workers reported spending roughly 6.4 hours per week on those tasks. So, that cut those gains in half. The report argues that organizations focusing solely on AI adoption rates may miss the larger challenge – integrating AI effectively into workflows and providing the context needed for reliable business level results.

Okay, let me … let me redefine the word context for you there. They mean ROI, return on investment. If you are employing AI into your business and your employees are using it, and I really hope that you are and they're getting trained, I am sure they are more productive because of it once they get good with it. And I am sure that's benefits to you, but you've got to measure.

If you're gonna be spending on AI tools, and I'm sure you are, just like big corporations are doing, any spend or investment that you made has got to be tracked against what the return is. Don't just spend it for no reason at all.

So, what this report is saying, that not enough business owners are really looking into the context of their AI gains. You know, I mean saving 11 hours a week in productivity but then having to spend another six and a half hours a week to review AI is one thing. In the end, people are still saving five hours a week. So, that five hours times a rate per hour – how much, you know, dollars does that turn into, those savings compared to the investment that you're making for AI?

Bottom line of that article is for you to know if you are investing in AI tools or features, functionality in your existing programs, building your own AI applications, figuring out return on investment is the key part of doing that. Make sure you don't spend your money on something that's not returning at least a multiple fold of what you're investing in.

All right, my name is Gene Marks, and you have been watching or listening to this week's episode of the Paychex Thrive Week in Review.

A couple of reminders for you. The Paychex “AI for Small Business: A Practical Guide” webinar series is free and available now throughout the month of June. Go to go.paychex.com/AIWebinarSeries. If you like this podcast, please follow us on your favorite podcast platform or YouTube.

In addition to that, if you would like some help in running your business, by all means, please go to paychex.com/thrive, sign up for our newsletter, and you'll get plenty of advice and tips and help in running your business, as well as back episodes of this podcast.

Thank you so much for joining us this week. We will see you again next week with another edition of the Paychex Thrive Week in Review. I'm Gene Marks. We'll see you then. Take care.

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